The New Orleans African American Museum will embark on a $6 million, nine-to-10 month renovation beginning in April, NOAAM board president Marsha Broussard said Tuesday. The project is meant to repair, stabilize and add modern amenities to the 1828 Meilleur-Goldthwaite villa and the museum’s three other historic buildings at 1418 Gov. Nicholls St. The project also will allow the museum to expand into a nearby early 20th-century building at 1417-19 Gov. Nicholls St.

NOAAM has presented art and cultural exhibitions in the Treme neighborhood since its founding in 2000. In 2011, the museum received $3 million for the upcoming renovation through the City of New Orleans Community Development Block Grant program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. According to Broussard, Louisiana and Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credits plus New Market Tax Credits – government programs that encourage investment in historic properties and properties in low-income areas -- are expected to account for the other $3 million.

Broussard said that the museum’s collection of antique architecture has suffered from storm damage and has deferred maintenance over recent years as NOAAM -- like most New Orleans nonprofit art institutions -- labored to make ends meet in the moribund economy. The renovation is meant to correct outstanding problems such as the outdoor stairway to the second story of the one-time servant quarters that was damaged during Hurricane Gustav. In addition, the renovation will provide much needed updates, such as an elevator to the second story of the main villa building.

The second floor is now used for administrative office space, Broussard said, but the elevator will allow handicapped access to the second story, thereby allowing for more public exhibition or meeting space on the main museum campus. Museum offices will be moved across the street into the newly acquired building. An archival storage area and reading room are planned for the new addition as well, to allow the museum to enlarge and better share its collection of historic artifacts.

Broussard said that a new prep kitchen is planned for the 1417-19 Gov. Nicholls St. expansion to better accommodate needs of caterers who serve weddings, parties and other rental functions. The new property, called the Community Education Center, will include a parking lot and garden. The New Orleans architecture and design firm Billes Partners won the bid to plan the overall renovation project in February. F.H. Myers Construction will do the renovating.

In May 2012, NOAAM was forced to cut expenses by terminating executive director Jonn Hankins. At the time, Broussard said that NOAAM’s annual revenue had dropped to $200,000, less than half of the ideal $500,000 operating income. The board of directors hopes to have a new director in place at the time of the reopening. The museum hopes to stockpile several years' salary in advance, she said.

The major maintenance and modernization of the museum will hopefully allow it to take advantage of exhibition and rental opportunities that NOAAM has had to pass up in the past, she said. Any such investment is risky, but “I’m not sure we had any other options,” she said.

Broussard said she hopes a future fund-raising drive will allow a major restoration of the Passebon cottage at the rear of the museum lot. The renovation of the cottage, which Broussard said is in an advanced stage of deterioration, was originally part of the current $6 million museum facelift. But, she said, when the design and construction bids came in, it became necessary to postpone the Passebon cottage renovation. Broussard estimates that the Passebon rebuilding will cost at least $500,000.

“It was a part of the project,” she said, “but our dollars have not gone as far as we’d hoped they would.”

The cottage, which was the home of free African-Americans before the Civil War, is of such historical importance, that it can be the compelling focus of a future fund-raising drive of its own, Broussard said.

“Our intent in respect to Passibon is to develop an exhibit that tells that story in a more comprehensive way,” she said.

The museum will close Saturday (March 16) for the duration of the renovation. NOAAM pop-up exhibits will take place in the lobby of the nearby New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation offices at 1205 N. Rampart St., beginning March 23 with an exhibit titled the Congo Square Invitational. NOAAM’s Treme neighborhood walking tours will originate at the NOJHF offices as well.

Broussard said that by the end of renovation, she expects that NOAAM will enjoy a "heightened relevance, visibility and capacity."